English language faculty-i course paper in lexicology

Conversion. Conversion is a very productive way of forming new words in Modern English, (For example work(n) — to work(v), pen(n) — to pen(v), to walk(v) — walk(n)). The term «conversion» was first used by Sweet in his book «New English Grammar) in 1892.
There are a lot of approaches to the study of conversion. Some linguists think that conversion is the formation of words without affixes. Others¹ say that conversion is the formation of new words with the help of a zero morpheme. Conversion is also defined as a shift from one part of speech to another². These treatments of conversion cause some doubt.
The treatment of conversion as a non-affixal word - buil­ding does not help us to distinguish the cases of conversion and sound interchange. For example. sing —song and paper n — pa­per v.
If we accept the point of view of the linguists who treat conversion as «a shift from one part of speech to another we can't differ between parts of speech, i. e. between noun and verb, noun and adjective etc.
«Conversion has already been defined as a shift from one part of speech to another. But this functional change has also been observed in a shift from one kind of noun to another, or one kind of verbs to another, or one kind of adverb to another; and it seems logical to regard conversion as functional change not only between the parts of speech but also within each part of speech. It should be insisted also that conversion and derivational change are two distinct processes; derivational change by the use of prefixes and suffixes shift words between the parts of speech by produc­ing different forms, as, for example, the adjective «wide», the noun «width», and the verb «widen». (A. G. Kennedy]
Prof. A. L. Smirnitsky³ says that conversion is the for­mation of a new word by a change of paradigm. It is the paradigm that is used as a. word building means. For example. in Uzbek: китоблар китобнинг, китобни, китобга, китобдан, китобда, китоби, китобим, китобинг, -лар, -нинг,- ни, -га, -да, -дан, -и, -им, -инг etc are the paradigms of the noun «китоб». In English book, books; book's; -s, 's, s' are the paradigms of the noun «book»; book v — booked, (he) books, booking, booked,-ed» ed (the ending of P II)-s,-ing, are the paradigms of the verb «to books». So conversion can be described as a mor­phological way of forming words.
There are two approaches to the study of conversion: syn-chronic and diachronic. On the diachronic level we study the origin of conversion, how the converted pairs appeared in the language. Conversion was born in XIII century as a re­sult of the disappearance of inflexions in the course of the historical development of the English language in Middle English.
For example. lufu — luf — love n. lufian — luf — love v andswaru — andswarian — answer n, andswarian — andswar — answer v. Some new words formed by conversion were created on the anology of the semantic patterns existed in the language. For example. to motor — travel by car to phone — use the telephone to wire — send a telegram. On the synchronic level conversion is considered as a type of forming new words by means of paradigms. The two words differ only in their paradigms.